Better Forgotten

            The wind blows from the Rhine, from the bridge where Robert jumped, to the docks downstream where the fishermen pulled him out, to the house. On these days, the drafty days, the children are quiet, waiting, hoping, for the telltale knock. Their nurses keep them out of the way, downstairs, or in the garden. Sometimes Johannes will come, and the house brightens, but the warmth flees hastily, driven away by the gust that slams the door closed behind him.

            There was warmth in the house when Robert lived there, still there, even whilst he himself had descended into the darkness. Clara’s love for her family had pervaded the house, and almost alleviated the bleakness of his presence. The happy times, when her father’s music brought cheer rather than melancholy, these are the moments that Marie misses.

            Today, Marie reads Johannes’ new copy of Les Misérables in the parlor, the room musty from disuse, while passages of Robert’s newest gloomy piano composition drift down from Clara’s study. Somewhere, baby Felix is wailing, his nurse unable to console him as the dismal music pervades the house. The gray light of a winter afternoon is seeping away, after a long day in anticipation of the letter. Marie is poised to light a candle when the house echoes with the knock. She sprints towards the entry, in a very unladylike fashion, but it matters little, no one will see. By the time the thick novel slides off the horsehair settee and hits the rug with a muffled thump, she is already halfway there. Brunhilde, the housekeeper, her eyes alight with hope, reaches the door even before Marie. Marie occasionally ponders, but only briefly, how the plump woman always manages to arrive at the door first, despite coming from the kitchen, on the other side of the house. She abandons this thought, however, as the door opens, revealing the messenger, a thin balding man whose thick indigo cloak is wrapped tightly against the gusting wind. His gloved hand pulls the thick envelope from the woolen folds to hand to Brunhilde. “From Endenich.” he says, with a slight smile, knowing from the experience of many visits how cherished these infrequent letters are.

            “Danke” Brunhilde thanks him, and the door bangs shut behind him. She turns to look at Marie, face ablaze with anticipation. “Endenich, Marie, Endenich.” She repeats.

            Marie nods, eyes wide, her face grave with understanding. “Shall I take it up to her?”

            Brunhilde hands her the letter with a nod, and Marie is gone, flying up the stairs and down the corridor to stand, breath heavy, at Clara’s study door.
            “Mutter, a letter.”

            The music ceases immediately and just seconds later the door flies open. “A letter, did you say, Marie?”

            “It’s from Endenich, Mutter.”

            Clara’s face brightens; her expression the way it was most of the time, in the days before Robert left. Marie clearly recalls that time, when her mother was always singing, along to the piano, or as she worked in her garden. Ferdinand and Eugenie, though, being so young, have mostly forgotten, they know only this distant mother whose study door is never open. Felix, born only the June before last, has never met his father, or the person his mother is when he is around.

            Marie hands the letter to her mother, the envelope thick and heavy with letters and newly composed music, and follows her into the study, hoping for a chance to read it, or even just catch a glimpse of her father’s handwriting. He has been gone for almost two years now – she has forgotten how it looks.

            Today, for once, Clara does not immediately command her daughter to leave, and Marie closes the door after her, soon uncomfortable near the blazing fire. Clara sits down in a large well-stuffed chair, moved into her room from Robert’s unused study. Marie sits down on the piano bench across the room and, together, they wait. From the experience of the very few times that Marie has seen her mother open Robert’s letters, she knows it will be a while before she has any idea as to its contents.

            Clara holds the envelope in her hands, turning it over and over, her face a strange combination of apprehension and hope. Marie, still a girl at fourteen, can only barely understand how her mother longs her father, his often depressive presence only welcome because of its cheering effect on her mother.

            She stares sightlessly at the missive, and Marie, though silently willing her mother to open Robert’s letter, and get the suspense over with, says nothing, for fear of alerting her mother to her presence in the room. Marie finds she is gripping the edge of the piano bench and folds her hands in her lap.

            The barren branches of the trees that line the garden wave and contort in the stiff wind that blows off the river, and Marie regards their dance, mesmerized, for an eternity, or maybe a few minutes. The silence in the study is broken as Clara opens the envelope with a long, slow rip.

            Almost reverently, the new music is removed from the envelope and set aside. Clara unfolds the letter. There are two pages, covered front and back with closely written, scarcely legible handwriting. Marie can’t imagine, now that she sees it, how she could have forgotten its scrawling form. Clara reads the letter, silently, slowly, her mouth moving along with Robert’s words. Finished, she turns the papers over and rereads them.

            She looks up with a sigh after the second reading, and starts a little, realizing that Marie is still in the room.

Marie raises her eyebrows. “Well?”

            “I’m going to Endenich, Marie.”

            “What?”

            “He’s asked me to come. The doctors say I’ll be allowed to see him.”

            Uninformed as she is, Marie can tell from the look on her mother’s face what this news means. Robert will never come home, and he will not be long at Endenich. Marie doesn’t know what to think. Her mother turns away to look at the music, and she escapes from the room, fleeing.

            The information follows her into the parlor. She lights a candle, and sets Les Misérables back on the couch. She can’t read now, though, and she can’t figure out how to feel. Robert’s depression will never cast a shadow over the family again, cause for relief on Marie’s part. Still, she has always assumed that he would return, and to lose one’s father – she feels obligated to grieve. Mutter would grieve, but then she’d been grieving, ever since Robert had gone to Endenich. And how, Marie wonders, will the little ones grieve for the father they can’t remember?

She is confronted only with the challenge of grieving for a father she would rather forget.